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    Ex-Porn Star, Now ‘Only Fans’ Performer Celebrates Hamas Terror Attacks 

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    0

    ANALYSIS – While most of us don’t care much about what a deranged former porn star turned ‘Only Fans’ webcam model (‘cam girl’) says, it’s a sign of our times that this is news. 

    Mia Khalifa is a 30-year-old Lebanese American born in Beirut and raised Catholic. But her previous life choices and current words and actions are far from Christian.

    Once PornHub’s highest-ranked adult star, Khalifa left the hard-core porn business to focus on ‘Only Fans.’

    Khalifa, who has long called Israel an apartheid state, provoked outrage with her enthusiastic support for Hamas terrorists following their horrific surprise attack on Israel which has taken over 800 Israeli lives, mostly civilians.

    Her support for the terrorists was shameless calling them ‘freedom fighters’ — even urging the brutal murderers to “flip their phones and film” their murderous rampage on Israel in the “horizontal.”

    When criticized for her horizontal comment, she responded, “I just wanna make sure there’s 4k footage of my people breaking down the walls of the open air prison they’ve been forced out of their homes and into so we have good options for the history books that write about how how they freed themselves from apartheid.”

    Fox News reported:

    She also reposted a message that said, “Babe wake up Palestine is getting liberated,” and mocked video of Israelis fleeing from attackers. Khalifa reposted anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian messages throughout the multipronged terrorist attack that left hundreds dead. Khalifa celebrated as terrifying videos, which included footage of Hamas kidnapping women and children while groups of young partygoers were tied up and taken into Gaza, shocked most onlookers.

    In a separate, apparently now-deleted post on X, Khalifa reportedly called a photo of Hamas terrorists in a pickup truck a “Renaissance painting.”

    Her support for Islamists terrorists is ironic considering that the pornographic performer also made headlines for claiming she received ISIS death threats as recently as 2018 over a sex scene she filmed wearing a hijab.

    Her current online rantings seem to also be hurting her pocketbook.

    Earlier, Khalifa doubled down amidst the backlash: “I’d say supporting Palestine has lost me business opportunities, but I’m more angry at myself for not checking whether or not I was entering into business with Zionists. My bad,” she wrote.

    But maybe the online backlash has finally caused her to backtrack, with the disgraced porn actress apparently shifting from being pro-Hamas, to simply being pro-Palestinian.

    Monday morning Khalifa posted on X:

    Hamas is not Palestine’s army, their actions do not reflect the Palestinian people. Hamas formed in 1987, 20 years AFTER the occupation, as a means of resistance to ethnic cleansing and apartheid. They are an extremist group calling on other extremist groups that also do not represent the masses of people.

    While no one should really care what Khalifa says, she can be seen as a bellwether of certain online opinions. And it is important to read them and counter outrageous opinions like hers wherever we find them.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Hunter Biden Hired Russian Prostitutes from Overseas ‘Sex Trafficking Ring’

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    President Joe Biden hugs his family during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

    ANALYSIS – Hunter knew how to party. The problem is a lot of his fun may have been highly illegal. And we aren’t just talking about run of the mill illegal drugs or prostitutes but hiring Russian hookers from an ‘Eastern European Sex Trafficking Ring.’ 

    And at times he used tens of thousands of dollars in cash funneled through a China-based company to pay for them.

    When ‘Hunter goes wild’ it’s on an epic, global scale. And it appears his dad, Joe Biden knew about it, and at times may have helped pay for it.

    Hunter also shamelessly deducted some hooker payments on his taxes, according to IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, who ran a five-year investigation into Hunter’s alleged tax crimes.

    As part of the ongoing banking investigation into Hunter’s financial transactions, which appear to have been monitored by Wells Fargo bank as late as 2019, numerous Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were generated and sent to the Treasury Department.

    While not proof of wrongdoing, SARs are red flags that provoke added scrutiny. 

    According to previously reported documents, including SARs, texts and video, Hunter spent a mind-blowing $30,000 on escorts in just five months, many secured via traffickers from overseas, and most transported across state lines in this country.

    This would violate the Mann Act’s prohibition on interstate prostitution.

    In addition to payments laundered through offshore business accounts, Hunter spent thousands of dollars from his joint personal account he had with his ex-wife Kathleen, who divorced him in 2017.

    But the latest SAR being reported flagged even larger amounts potentially spent on illegal drugs and prostitutes. The Daily Mail reported that $1,162,732 was sent to Hunter’s China-based company Owasco from business partner and Biden family friend Rob Walker.

    Walker was also a former Clinton administration official.

    The Hunter payments appear to be part of larger sums paid from a group of 25 individuals linked to the suspected sex trafficking ring. In total this group was responsible for almost $7million in suspicious transactions.

    Investigators also noted that some of the checks from Hunter’s business account may have been falsified to hide his payments to hookers.

    Hunter reportedly wrote checks disguised as medical services to escorts supplied by Ekaterina Moreva in New York, whose website UberGFE.com offered a ‘girlfriend experience’ with escorts as young as 20.

    The Daily Mail reported:

    ‘This investigation observed that Biden and related business accounts received unknown sources of funds, which funded cash withdrawals, outgoing transfers, and outgoing checks that appeared to be needlessly split into smaller amounts for no clear economic purpose.

    ‘The overall activity appeared related to prostitution or drugs. The review also found that several customers suspected of participating in a sex trafficking ring associated with Biden continued to have what appeared to be an unusual movement of funds in their accounts.’

    The British outlet added that “Wells Fargo investigators traced payments to suspected members of the prostitution ring back to a Hong Kong company.”

    The Mail continued:

    One suspected member Hunter sent money to was Ekaterina Pitula, the 39-year-old Russian owner of an Irvine, California, retail store Victoria Rossi, the SAR said.

    In 2019, Investigators spotted 25 cash deposits by Pitula totaling $18,728 in her personal and business accounts, which were then wired to a Chinese account of a company called HECNY International Ltd, to another woman’s account in Russia, and to a man in Ukraine.

    But the bigger issue is that Joe Biden appears to have helped his son pay for some of these potentially trafficked Russian sex workers. Some of Hunter’s hooker payments came just hours after he received thousands of dollars from his dad.

    https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1672069005723435010

    The Washington Examiner showed texts from January 2019 noting that Joe Biden sent Hunter $5,000 just before he got into a dispute with a prostitute he claimed he paid $10,000.

    In a letter to the Department of Justice (DoJ) on September 8 from Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, he writes: “The Committee on Oversight and Accountability continues to investigate whether the Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) is upholding the rights of victims who were sexually exploited by Robert Hunter Biden (Hunter Biden).”

    Comer added: “These women may be victims under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act and may also be afforded mandatory restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act.”

    This entire sordid Hunter affair brings to memory former Democrat New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who resigned from office in 2008 after reports were published about his penchant for high priced call girls, some whom he paid to travel across state lines.

    But Hunter takes everything to a whole new level.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    New Plan for Old Biden: Tennis Shoes and Baby Stairs on Air Force One

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    6
    The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – In case you missed it, Joe Biden tripped again recently going down the stairs of Air Force One. And these weren’t the normal tall stairs used by proud Commanders in Chief, that rise all the way to the top of the majestic presidential aircraft, but the very short baby stairs that are used by ‘the help’ that go into the lower bowels of the plane.

    That is the new normal for our aging and decrepit occupant of the White House. That and tennis shoes worn with business suits and seeing a physical therapist. All to avoid tripping, slipping, or falling, and not being able to get back up.

    This latest slip occurred just hours after Axios reported Biden’s campaign is “working on a critical project for his re-election bid: Make sure he doesn’t trip.”

    ‘Operation Don’t Let Biden Fall’ would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. But as Axios notes: “Biden’s team is betting that any mockery he receives over using the shorter Air Force One steps and wearing tennis shoes will be worth it to avoid another public stumble.”

    Many Democrats worry about Biden having a bad fall like Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, 73 at the time, had in September 1996, when he fell off a stage at a rally weeks before the election.

    Democrats already had been knocking Dole about his age compared to the 50-year-old Bill Clinton running for re-election.

    Biden has repeatedly stumbled and tripped in public, including, most dramatically on stage at the Air Force’s graduation in June. 

    Biden’s physician has diagnosed Biden’s stumbles as likely caused by “a combination of significant spinal arthritis” and “mild post-fracture foot arthritis.” 

    Folksy old Biden might just say he is getting long in the tooth.

    Biden, the oldest-ever serving U.S. president, turns 81 in less than two months. Three-fourths of Americans see Biden as too old for office, according to an AP-NORC poll last month.

    Another poll from the Washington Post and ABC News in late September found that 3 out of 5 Democrats would prefer someone else be the party’s 2024 nominee.

    The president’s doctor has recommended special exercises for balance, which he called “proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”

    Unfortunately, Axios noted, no one has ever heard of these “maneuvers.”

    “I have never heard the term ‘proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.’ It is not a clinical term in standard use,” said Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California.

    Biden’s doctor is just as good as Biden at using made up words or as good as the White House Press secretary is at blowing smoke.

    As bad as his obvious physical frailty is, Americans should be just as concerned, or more so, about Biden’s severe mental decline. 

    And it must be bad, when even the establishment media has noticed. NBC News reported in July:

    Apparent to anyone paying attention is that the Biden they may remember from the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings of 1987, or the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin in 2008, is a different man today. His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.” At a conference last year, he looked out at the audience and called for a congresswoman who had recently died in a car crash.

    The outlet added that Biden is “relying on “extra-large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings.”

    I must note that I’ve seen the extra-large font on his teleprompter, and it is embarrassingly HUGE.

    Meanwhile, the New York Times reported in June that Biden’s “staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leave him alone on weekends as much as possible.”

    But there is only so much you can do to hide the fact that this man should be in a rocking chair with his grandkids, not leading the free world. 

    It is doubtful that Team Biden can keep their man from falling during the camapign, it is even more doubtful that – barring keeping him isolated in a soundproof bubble – they can keep him from babbling incoherently.

    Either way, we definitely don’t want Biden answering what Hillary Clinton in 2008 called “the 3am phone call” to the White House in a major crisis. And I can see a lot of those calls coming in over the next four years.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Will Biden Apologize to Trump Over Suddenly Restarting Border Wall?

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    5
    Trump at the border wall via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – More than two years after ceasing construction on former President Donald Trump’s border wall, and more than two million illegal immigrants flooding into the United States, Joe Biden is quietly restarting the oft criticized by the left, but critical, border barrier.

    According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) led by the incompetent Alejandro Mayorkas, Team Biden has used executive action to suddenly waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow emergency border wall construction.

    The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were some of the federal laws waived by Biden to allow immediate construction of the border wall using funds appropriated by congress in 2019. 

    The waivers, also criticized by left wing activists and environmentalists, avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.

    The initial construction would be in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” Around 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded this fiscal year in the Rio Grande Valley Sector which contains 21 counties.

    “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice, according to Newsmax.

    Trump responded to the news on Truth Social:

    “So interesting to watch Crooked Joe Biden break every environmental law in the book to prove that I was right when I built 560 miles (they incorrectly state 450 in story!) of brand new, beautiful border wall.” 

    Biden ceased the border barriers that Trump had earlier begun, on Inauguration day Jan. 20, 2021, stating then that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”

    Texas Governor Greg Abbott renewed some of those efforts after Biden halted them on day one of his presidency. But the state can only do so much.

    Apparently, it took Biden more than two years and massive waves of unvetted, illegal immigrants crowding our major cities, to realize that the border wall is a serious policy solution after all.

    Trump added on Truth Social: “As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls! Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving, and allowing our country to be flooded with 15 million illegals immigrants, from places unknown. I will await his apology!” 

    I don’t know if 15 million illegals have come in under Biden, but it is a huge number. Border control advocates hope this major reversal will lead to a total overhaul of Biden’s failed border and immigration policies.

    As Newsmax reported:

    “After years of denying that a border wall and other physical barriers are effective, the DHS announcement represents a sea change in the administration’s thinking: A secure wall is an effective tool for maintaining control of our borders,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement. “Having made that concession, the administration needs to immediately begin construction of wall across the border to prevent the illegal traffic from simply moving to other areas of the border.”

    It’s time for the dysfunctional GOP congress to push Biden on this issue. It should be a battle cry for the next House speaker.

    Conservative firebrand Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chair, who has thrown his name into the race for speaker, said his first focus as leader would be border security. 

    ‘The very first thing I would focus on is that no money can be used to process the release of migrants into this country,’ he told Fox.  That, and accelerating border wall construction should be priorities, followed by reinstalling most , if not all of Trump’s effective border and immigration policies.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    General Milley Stoops To Trump Lows With ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Jab

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

    ANALYSIS – General Milley’s comments were beneath him, even if Trump provoked him. As I wrote about earlier, former President Donald Trump made typically inappropriate remarks when he implied outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, due to his back-channel calls to China’s top general, deserved the ‘DEATH’ penalty for treason (all caps were in Trump’s post on Truth Social).

    While no one should take Trump’s bombastic social media posts too seriously, I did say Trump was wrong to add fuel to an already flammable political environment in our country with his comments. I have also criticized Milley for his many overreactions to Trump’s words and deeds during his time in office.

    In doing so, Milley made Trump out to be something he wasn’t, placed himself smack in the middle of the Democrat Party narrative of Trump, and undermined the commander-in-chief and the presidency.

    In my view Milley has also been at the very least deliberately and willfully ignorant of the extreme woke policies the Pentagon has been pushing. Still, despite all my jabs at Milley, I respected his decades of service to the uniform and our country.

    It’s a shame then, that Milley chose to take the low road on his way out of the DC swamp, demeaning himself and the institution, while himself politicizing the military against Trump.

    As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wrote:

    Gen. Milley retired this week after four years as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We are unique among the world’s militaries,” the top military officer said at a retirement ceremony on Friday, noting that service members swear an oath to the Constitution.

    “We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”

    Readers will catch the parting shot at Mr. Trump. The media certainly did. And who could blame Gen. Milley for loathing Mr. Trump? Casually floating the idea of harming a U.S. military officer is conduct unworthy of a wannabe Commander in Chief.

    Yet it was still dispiriting to hear Gen. Milley’s remarks about a former President, in public, while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Like it or not, he commands political support in the country. That doubtless includes a large chunk of the enlisted ranks of the United States military services. The end-of-tour catharsis of a swipe at Mr. Trump isn’t worth polarizing the force over politics.

    I agree wholeheartedly with the Journal. Milley knows better, and with his bitter and snarky jabs at Trump chose to take the low road rather than the high road on his way out. 

    Despite my great misgivings about the truly woke new Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, I also concur with the Journal’s parting words: “We hope that turning down the temperature of politics in the U.S. armed forces is a priority for the new chairman—perhaps behind only the military threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”

    Message to Brown: We need an apolitical military leadership no matter the provocations from any political leader. That also means being non-ideological and non-woke. 

    It’s a shame Milley couldn’t see that while he was chairman, and also couldn’t just leave gracefully.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    ‘Deranged’ Leftist NY Judge Declares Trump Guilty of Fraud Before Trial Begins

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    15
    Gavel via Wikimedia Commons Image

    ANALYSIS – In what is only the latest weaponized, partisan legal action against former President Donald Trump, the far-left Democrat New York state attorney Letitia James and her leftist cohort Justice Arthur Engoron have just found Trump guilty of civil fraud before his trial even began.

    Never mind that the case is obscene to begin with and should not even exist. And the law it is based on is obscene as well and should not exist either. Andrew McCarthy explains in National Review:

    James, an ambitious progressive authoritarian who campaigned for office on a vow to weaponize the Empire State’s legal processes against Trump, decided to package the scraps [of leftover fraud charges no one else could prosecute] into a lengthy civil complaint. After all, she had a secret weapon: New York’s Executive Law 65(12), which empowers an abusive prosecutor to put partisan enemies out of business without having to prove anything. Although this provision purports to outlaw “repeated” and “persistent” “fraud” and/or “illegality,” in reality, as I explained last week in a column for The Messenger:

    “The law doesn’t require a showing of harm. The state need not prove the defendant even intended to defraud anyone, much less actually defrauded someone. It need not be established that any creditor or financial institution even relied on the defendant’s misrepresentations, that those misrepresentations were material, or that anyone was actually fooled by them. The state just has to show that a defendant made false claims with enough “persistence” and “repetition” that at least two persons were “affected” — which, whatever it means, is not a synonym for ‘harmed.’”


    Claiming Trump significantly overvalued his properties and assets when presenting his company’s financials to banks and lenders and that this somehow “affected” someone, James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

    The accusations are that Trump inflated the value of assets by $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion annually between 2011 and 2021 to save hundreds of millions on loans and insurance.

    This, even though no one has been claimed to have been harmed, and all financial institutions take self-declared valuations like those made by Trump, with a grain of salt when making loans and other major financial decisions.

    Bankers and insurance executives have a fiduciary obligation to conduct their own due diligence to determine what they believe are fair market valuations of assets. And they always do.

    And as McCarthy further explains, everyone involved knew Trump exaggerated just about everything:

    …this was for political consumption and the burnishing of celebrity. In the league of sophisticated financial actors in which Trump plays, where corporate departments are dedicated to valuation analysis because that’s the bread-and-butter of finance, nobody took this nonsense seriously. Indeed, Trump even included a “worthless clause” in his SFCs which, in so many words, warned that they were apt to be, you know, somewhat less than perfectly accurate. Many of the financial institutions that did business with Trump did so for years, and knew exactly the cat they were dealing with. They made loans and indemnified Trump because they knew, based on their own expertise and experience with him, that he was quite wealthy (even if not as wealthy as he claimed) and that he would pay up.

    But that didn’t stop Justice Engoron, who ruled preemptively on September 26 that James had proven Trump and his co-defendants fraudulently inflated his assets. 

    Engoron, in his ruling, ordered the cancellation of certificates that 10 of Trump’s business entities need to operate some of his marquee properties — including Trump Tower and his golf clubs in New York — and said he would appoint independent receivers to oversee their “dissolution.”

    The judge thus essentially imposed the corporate death penalty on Trump’s businesses BEFORE the trial even began.

    Trump responded in a post on his Truth Social platform the day of the ruling, calling accusations that he committed fraud “ridiculous and untrue,” and hit back, calling Engoron a “DERANGED” judge.

    In this case, I must agree with Trump’s wording. The judge is deranged, but he is also a partisan hack and embarrassment in what is already a highly partisan and embarrassing New York judicial system.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Did Trump Threaten to Execute Gen. Mark Milley for Treason?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

    ANALYSIS – Words matter. In a post on his Truth Social platform last Friday, former President Donald Trump suggested that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley deserved to be executed after speaking with China’s top general during Trump’s final months in office. 

    Trump said Milley’s “treasonous act” was “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

    Clearly, Trump wasn’t threatening to do so but saying that Milley’s actions could have been punished by death in a prior era.

    I condemned Milley’s actions at the time because they seemed to give the Chinese Communist regime a promise that they would be given a warning prior to any attack under Trump.

    While Milley claims his actions were a normal part of his duties, I disagree. 

    They appeared to be more a normal part of the mission that he took upon himself, which was to counter Trump when Milley believed the president had crossed some line only Milley could see.

    Some argue that Milley’s actions were not only disloyal to the president but also borderline ‘treasonous.’

    Milley contends that he was behaving appropriately to avert an accidental war. He responded to Trump’s comments on CBS:

    He also assured viewers that he had adequate safety measures for himself and his family.

    The two backchannel calls to China’s top general, Li Zuocheng, that Milley made, and at the center of all this, were revealed in the 2021 book “Peril.”  

    As CNN reported:

    In October 2020, as intelligence suggested China believed the US was going to attack them, Milley sought to calm Li by reassuring him that the US was not considering a strike, according to the book. Milley called again two days after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol to tell Li that the US is “100 percent steady” even though “things may look unsteady.”

    How much of this reporting in the book was accurate, is hard to say. But Trump sees things very differently. 

    Trump said that Milley “turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States.”

    And Trump may be right. For Milley to do that could be seen as highly inappropriate, if not exactly ‘treasonous.’

    Still, Trump, a former president, and current front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, is way out of line. No American political leader should be using that kind of language against any American military official or political leader.

    In today’s volatile climate, it is extremely dangerous.

    Yet few in the GOP will condemn Trump’s statements. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is one of those willing to take aim at the Republican frontrunner. Politico quoted Hutchinson as saying:

    To suggest that Gen. Milley should be executed is inexcusable and dangerous. While some will excuse this latest outrage as Trump just being Trump, the fact is that his statement endangers people and is an insult to those who serve in the military.

    Perennial Trump critic, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, had stronger words, calling Trump an “absolute child” for the “reprehensible” remarks. 

    But it is part of a disturbing pattern by both sides to use dangerously inflammatory rhetoric at the highest levels against the other side.

    Democrats raised the political temperature considerably against Trump, calling for, or at least condoning the calls for, his beheading and death on many occasions. 

    The demonization of Trump by the left and Democrat Party was more than I had ever seen in over thirty years in and around U.S. politics. 

    It was, and still is, outrageous.

    But Trump isn’t helping things with his own dangerous rhetoric.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Trump Dominates GOP Presidential Rivals as Biden Approval Tanking

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Even as the indictments pile up, or maybe because of them, a new national NBC News poll finds former President Donald Trump expanding his national lead in the Republican presidential nominating contest to 43 points over his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

    Trump leads the first-choice field with 59% of national Republican primary voters. In comparison, Ron DeSantis gets support from 16% — followed by former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at 7% and former Vice President Mike Pence at 4%.

    The poll also includes an all-time high disapproval of Joe Biden’s job performance. Fewer than 4 in 10 voters (37%) approve of his handling of the economy. This is huge.

    As NBC News reported: 

    Deeper inside those numbers, Biden is underwater among voters between the ages of 18 and 34 (46% of them approve of his job performance), all women (46%), Latinos (43%) and independents (36%).

    What’s more, the NBC News poll finds 37% of voters approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, and 41% approve of his handling of foreign policy.

    Biden is also taking a big hit for his open borders policy and unprecedented waves of illegal immigration on his watch, as also shown by a recent The Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

    Axios noted: 

    “A variety of factors may be at play,” [ABC News’ Gary] Langer writes in his analysis. “Biden’s poor performance ratings, the extent of economic discontent, the immigration crisis and doubts about his age clearly are relevant.”

    Axios added: “In the Post-ABC poll, 44% said they’re worse off — the most for any president in the poll since… 1986, ABC News’ Gary Langer said in his poll analysis.”

    “In NBC, Biden’s disapproval rating is the highest of his term for that poll.”

    NBC News also noted that: “Another 60% have major concerns (45%) or moderate concerns (15%) about Biden’s possible awareness or involvement in the business dealings of his son, Hunter, including alleged financial wrongdoing and corruption.”

    “This [NBC] survey is a startling flashing red light for an incumbent party,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. McInturff conducted the September 15-19 poll with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt and his team at Hart Research Associates.

    “Yes, the numbers for Biden aren’t where he needs them to be,” said Horwitt. However, Trump and Republicans have challenges, such as the GOP front-runner’s unpopularity with the general electorate.

    Most polls show that both Trump and Biden have high unfavorability going into a general election.

    NBC News reported: “Three-quarters of voters say they’re concerned about President Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness, while nearly two-thirds have concerns about the multiple trials former President Donald Trump faces, a new national NBC News poll finds, casting a gloomy shadow over the upcoming 2024 presidential election.”

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    ‘Bidenomics’ – U.S. National Debt Passes $33 Trillion for First Time

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    4
    Image via Pixabay free images

    ANALYSIS – In case some readers weren’t sure, this is a big reason the conservative GOP ‘Freedom Caucus’ is threatening a government shutdown. Thanks to Joe Biden’s massive spending orgy, the gross U.S. national debt has breached the $33 trillion mark for the first time.

    To be precise, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, as of September 18, 2023 (just 12 days short of the end of our fiscal year), the national debt has risen to $33,053,950,837,720 or $33.05 trillion.

    America’s runaway inflation, which is crushing everyone’s pocketbooks, is just one result of this part of ‘Bidenomics.’

    This unprecedented debt is also fueling concerns that another fight over federal spending may trigger the first government shutdown since 2019.

    Without drastic spending cuts, it’s only going to get worse, much worse.

    Even accounting for newly passed spending cuts, the U.S. national debt is on track to top $50 trillion by the end of the decade, impacted by mounting interest and the cost of the nation’s social programs.

    This is unsustainable; a looming catastrophe waiting to happen.

    And, yes, while Donald Trump clearly overspent, especially due to the COVID-19 epidemic, this current staggering debt, and the debt going forward, is mostly Biden’s fault.

    As David Winston explained in Rollcall back in April:

    The president [Biden] and his White House have taken the 2020 COVID-19, one-time-only crisis budget as his administration’s working baseline, rather than the pre-Covid 2019 budget, which had a significant $4.4 trillion price tag.

    In 2020, because of the pandemic, the budget jumped 47 percent to $6.5 trillion, as both Democrats and Republicans supported the need for emergency funding. That COVID funding was to sunset as the country returned to normal — as it did last year. Apparently, Biden decided to ignore that crucial point.

    Instead, he saw that supersized budget in 2020 not as a crisis, but an opportunity that could be exploited going forward to pay for what amounted to a historic spending spree that kicked off with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and drove what became the worst inflation in 40 years. During Biden’s first two years in office, he oversaw spending that was 40 percent higher than the pre-COVID 2019 budget.

    According to the CBO, Biden is going to match Trump’s addition to the national debt in just three years, reaching a total of $7.1 trillion over his four years. That would be $1.5 trillion more than Trump contributed during his term, which included the 2020 one-time COVID emergency spending. If Biden’s 2024 proposed budget actually passed, he would add as much to the national debt as Trump and Bush 43 combined. House Republican leaders have made clear his budget isn’t going anywhere; but it illustrates just how out of control Biden’s spending policies really are.

    This is a big reason why the House Freedom Caucus is willing to shut down the government to try to impose some sort of fiscal discipline.

    While much of the news has focused on the ‘intransigent’ MAGA conservatives undermining Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the House Republicans on this issue, Biden refuses to even discuss the House majority’s proposals.

    Biden says he wants a “clean” debt ceiling vote without any provisions to control spending. This is not surprising since he just proposed a budget that will reach a record $10 trillion in spending by 2033. 

    As horrible as a government shutdown will be, allowing this massive debt to keep growing is unacceptable. Without massive cuts, everyday Americans will still be paying the bill, long after Biden is gone.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Pro-Lifers Bash Trump ‘Terrible’ Abortion Comments – But Was He Wrong?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Washington D.C., USA - January 22, 2015; A Pro-Life woman clashes with a group of Pro-Choice demonstrators at the U.S. Supreme Court.

    ANALYSIS – During his recent NBC interview, former president Donald Trump called Florida’s recently passed six-week abortion ban “terrible.” The ban was signed into law by his 2024 Republican campaign rival Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

    Trump believes that picking six weeks as the line to draw for abortion banning is not politically viable nationally. He argued that both liberals and conservatives should agree on a compromise solution — a compromise number of weeks.

    And to clarify, Trump said the six-week ban was: “terrible. A terrible mistake.”

    He was saying that, politically, passing a six-week ban was a mistake, because it charges up the pro-abortion activists, and alienates moderate women needed to win nationally.

    Like it or not, exit polls in 2022 showed that the rush to ban abortions outright by some states just after Roe vs Wade was reversed, scared away a lot of independents and moderate suburban women, contributing to the extremely weak results for Republicans in the last midterm elections.

    Trump, the ever-ready wheeler dealer, also predicted that: “both sides are going to like me,” adding, “What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months, you’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy.”

    Here I think Trump made a terrible choice of words. You don’t want the left to like you, even if you are trying to disarm them. But that’s the way he thinks and speaks.

    The former president also said that he would be “a mediator” between both sides to come up with a policy that is “good for everybody.”

    I take that to mean a compromise timeline on the number of weeks for banning abortion nationwide, and what exceptions to make.

    Some pro-lifers immediately bashed Trump for his comments. The Christian Post reported on the backlash:

    Trump’s criticism of Florida’s law that bans abortion once a heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks of gestation, did not sit well with pro-life activists

    Lila Rose, the founder and president of the pro-life group Live Action, took to X to describe the former president’s remarks as “pathetic and unacceptable.”

    “Trump is actively attacking the very pro-life laws made possible by Roe’s overturning,” Rose wrote. “Heartbeat Laws have saved thousands of babies. But Trump wants to compromise on babies’ lives so pro-abort Dems ‘like him.'” 

    And then there was conservative culture warrior Matthew Walsh, with whom I usually agree, who called Trump’s remarks as “an awful answer from a moral perspective” and “also stupid politically.” 

    In his post on X (formerly Twitter) Walsh said that “there is no compromise on abortion that everyone will like.”

    “It’s delusional to think otherwise. And contrary to Trump’s claims, almost all Democrats are indeed extreme on this issue,” he added. “You will be hard pressed to find more than maybe two or three on the national stage who don’t want abortion until birth or beyond. You can’t win over Democrats by going squishy on this issue. Republicans have tried that brilliant strategy for decades and accomplished exactly nothing by it.” 

    But is Trump wrong? 

    A six-week ban based on a fetal heartbeat sounds very reasonable to me. And is fine for Florida.

    But I know that won’t wash with many other folks across the country who aren’t extreme but prefer another timeline for banning abortion. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who is staunchly pro-life, doesn’t believe a 15-week national ban is realistic either.

    As governor of South Carolina, Haley signed a 20-week ban, joining 12 other states back then with bans.

    Polls have shown that many, if not most, Democrats believe in some restrictions on abortion. Most, if not all Republicans will make exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother. Many would be happy with any reasonable ban, whether six, eight or ten weeks.

    And Trump isn’t the only one who argues that taking a strident no compromise stance on abortion will hurt Republicans nationally. As the Christian Science Monitor reported:

    At a closed-door conference meeting in the Capitol earlier this month, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave Senate Republicans a briefing that seemed intended to serve as a wake-up call. The Dobbs decision has “recharged the abortion debate and shifted more people (including some Republicans) into the anti-Dobbs ‘pro-choice’ camp,” the political action committee’s report stated. Some senators reportedly left the meeting brainstorming potential new labels, such as “pro-baby,” that could replace the increasingly fraught “pro-life.”

    Unlike in the past, when conservative candidates could simply identify themselves as “pro-life” without having to be specific, they are now being peppered with questions about real policy choices: Should abortion be banned at the state or federal level? After how many weeks? With or without exceptions? What about abortion pill restrictions?

    At one end of the 2024 spectrum are Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who have strongly leaned into an anti-abortion message. Both candidates have endorsed a national 15-week abortion ban.

    By contrast, Mr. Trump, in his “Meet the Press” interview, declined to explicitly endorse a 15-week ban, drawing a rare rebuke this week from Senator Scott. Ms. Haley has outright dismissed a national 15-week ban as unrealistic – one of the “hard truths” that she has been delivering to voters across New Hampshire and Iowa. She says the Supreme Court was “right” to send abortion back to the states.

    While I understand and appreciate the 100% pro-life stance, I also want to win the White House and Senate, and expand our lead in the House, so conservatives can keep pushing on this and other issues important to us.

    So, Trump may not be wrong. We need to be more tactically flexible to win the bigger war.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

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